Team Congo PDX & Cause + Event Portand

We are now less than a month out to Cause + Event Portland's charity walk/run, and as of today's date, Team Congo PDX has 43 members, which means that simply by joining our team, our members have raised $430 for Women for Women International's Congo program (half of each team member's registration fee is a donation to our cause)! 

Our team is multi-distance: 10K or 5K run or 5K walk. The race starts at 9:00 am (individual event start times TBA).  Our team members need not worry about their individual pace affecting our team, as each team member will run or walk their own race—it’s just about numbers and raising funds & awareness for good causes (over 40 charities, including Women for Women International, will benefit from this event). 

Why Congo?  Over the past 12 years just under 6 million people have died due to violence fueled over who controls the mineral mines in eastern Congo, leaving women & children vulnerable.  There are 4 main minerals which are sourced from eastern Congo which are necessary for our every-day electronics to function properly: cell phones, computers, digital cameras, etc.  It the goal of Team Congo PDX to educate others about the conflict in the region, their inadvertent connection to the conflict, and provide positive & proactive ways to affect change. 

Perks of joining our team?  Each member of Team Congo PDX will receive a free Run for Congo Women t-shirt (if they don't already have one), and will receive an invite to our Facebook group so that we can better coordinate for race day. Also, doesn't everyone want to be in the group photo on race day with our Run for Congo Women banner?

Photo taken by Alexa Brandt of Fatman Productions

Team Congo PDX members will also have an opportunity to win a free entry into our 2014 Group Walk/Run which is held on International Women's Day. The team member who raises the most funds for our cause via our official team fundraising page will win the free entry!

Also, this past June Team Congo PDX entered into a friendly challenge with the Angel's MS Warriors team & whichever team brings the most members will get to select which exercise the losing team has to complete on race day & our friendly challenge has caught the attention of the race organizers & so it should be a fun spectacle in front of everyone! And, the largest team will receive $250 for their charity.  

To date Angel MS Warriors have 70 on their team, but we haven't given up yet!  So, please ask your friends and family to join Team Congo PDX on 11.16.13 to support women in eastern Congo! 

Pertinent links:

Team Congo PDX Facebook Page

Team Congo PDX Website

Team Congo PDX Fundraising Page

Join Team Congo PDX @ Cause + Event

Cause + Event Facebook Page

Cause + Event Website

Inspiration Amid Exhaustion

Here it is nearly 11:00 pm, and I'm tired and plain worn out from the past week.  I'm still getting over a nasty cold, work is busy, and I'm juggling several charity projects, all amazing and also another reason why I'm tired, mentally. 

Photo by Marcus Bleasdale (source)

But, now my mind is abuzz after reading the October 2013 National Geographic which features the work of Marcus Bleasdale, a photographer who has been capturing the conflict in eastern Congo for over a decade.  This article compels me to get out of my cozy bed, boot up my computer and pound this out, because it's the only way my mind will ever find enough peace to call it a night. 

I'm inspired, and feel a kindred spirit in Mr. Bleasdale:

"When I first went to the Congo, I realized that a hundred years after Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, nothing has changed.  People were still being exploited, only now it was multinational corporations sucking up all the resources.  A report in 2004 said that more than four million people had died in what is now called Africa's first world war, and I just couldn't believe that no one was talking about this horrific death toll.  That enraged me.  At one point I was spending eight months a year photographing this war, and yet only a couple of international reporters were covering it from Kinshasa.  So I keep bringing back these images because I want to make people as angry as I am.  I want them to know the minerals in our mobile phones or computers or cameras are funding violence.  How can we make the horror stop?  It begins with a photograph." ~October 2013 National Geographic

And, so thank you Mr. Bleasdale for so eloquently explaining why it is that the Congo has changed my life.  I simply cannot bear to live in a world where nearly 6 million people can die, seemingly unnoticed, simply because their blessing is a curse, and where I am an inadvertent cause for the continued curse. Indeed, I want to live in a world where living in one of the most mineral rich regions in the world doesn't mean that you must live amid horrific violence. 

I am honored and humbled to be a part of a movement sweeping across the country, and in fact across the world, to shine a bright light on the situation in Congo, because the fact is that, "...your laptop--or camera or gaming system or gold necklace--may have a smidgen of Congo's pain somewhere in it." (October 2013 National Geographic)

And so, no matter how tired I become at times, I will persist on, and keep working to highlight the beauty of Congo, and to educate others as to the horrors which threaten to snuff out this beauty.